Title: Strategies for competition ? a study of the Swedish contact lenses market.Authors: Pernilla AArskog and Annika Lange.Background: As a market gets more mature and the competition increases, it is more important for a company to apply the right strategic perspective. There are four fundamental strategic perspectives for a service-oriented business: a core product-, a price-, an image- and a service perspective. This study is a about service management and take its point from the theories from the Nordic School about strategies for competition, customer value, perceived customer quality and customer loyalty.Purpose: The main purpose with this study is to analyze and evaluate how the actors at the Swedish market of contact lenses should compete to gain further competitive advantages.Method: The study includes four qualitative interviews with two traditional opticians and two Internet based businesses, but also a survey with 106 contact lens users is included.Analysis: In the analyse part of this thesis it was concluded that the traditional opticians conception about their customer not agrees with what the customer evaluate as important. Many of the customers have thought about changing their optician, and besides that do not recommend their optician, and can there for not be categorize as loyal customers.

We are two students of Horticulture management with marketing profile, now doing an extended course in Business Leadership within horticulture and agriculture. During our 2 years of studies we have used the same company once before, and this project is an expansion of a previous piece of work. We decided, in agreement with the company, to use an inquiry for our study. For this we have contacted 290 of the company's already existing customers. The primary purpose of the survey is to analyze the service offered by the company.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze how the mining equipment producers on a global market manage to handle the changing conditions concerning customer value. Our approach has been a comparative analysis between two different sites in order to answer the purpose. The case studies at Metso Mining have been made through interviews and visits at two geographical markets, South America and Scandinavia. The theoretical framework applied on our empirical findings is based on Blue Ocean Strategy, Customer Value and Resourced Based View. The empirical foundation is based on interviews with Metso Mining employees at Sorocaba in Brazil and Kiruna/Gällivare, Trelleborg and Staffanstorp in Sweden.

The purpose of this study is to provide a longitudinal examination, within grocery retailing, of four marketing tools and their impact on enhancing customer loyalty. The study examines whether the relationship between the four marketing tools and customer satisfaction has a positive effect on attitude and behavior loyalty. The findings from this study show that the marketing tools have not helped enhancing loyalty between 2004 and 2007. Between these years, service quality has the most affect on loyalty. Self-scanning as an effective marketing tool could be questioned, the relation in this study is not supported.

The purpose of this thesis was to look into how event management companies got knowledge about their customers? expectations and how they are influenced by these expectations. A case study was conducted based upon interviews with two employees from two companies that are in the business. The study has shown that event management companies do try to get awarness about their customers' expectations, especially by listening and discussing with the customer. Personal contact is an efficient way of communicating and a way to avoid misunderstandings, which is a common mistake when customers' expectations are not met.

This qualitative case study, made with four companies, looks closer at how more effective information management, with the help of IT-systems, affect companies market communication and relations to customers and suppliers. Customer Relationship Management perspective is used and Enterprise Resource Planning-systems are the ground for new technology change. The main conclusions are that new technology affects the outcome of companies? relationships towards their customers and suppliers and that the processes and activities between the involved parties are more closely linked. Also involving your suppliers and external actors makes the information handling more effective and companies that do so most likely have a competitive advantage..

Purpose: The study aims to, from a companys point of view, describe how strategic work with customer loyalty is done.Conclusion: Another possible way to try to create loyalty is to exceed the expectations whether the customer is a member of the loyalty program or not. A strong brand with a good reputation can also contribute to a stronger loyalty. Reward systems gradually reward the customers since they first need to collect points, or in this case miles, to be able to use them later on. The staff is often educated in service to be able to interact with the customer in a professional manner. One way to interact with the members of the loyalty program is through profiles on the internet.

This paper is a degree project on the C-level, 15 points at University West, Department of Business and IT dept. Informatics. This study is about agile methodology and its impact on IT projects. Requirements management is a process within an IT project, where customer has certain requirements that must be met by an IT system. The difference between the traditional and agile development is in the requirements management process and it can cause problems in a project.

Syfte: Syftet är att undersöka sambandet mellan kundkort, lojalitet och lönsamhet. Vidare ämnar vi kartlägga lojalitetsskapande åtgärder och hur dessa påverkar lönsamheten. Metod: För att uppfylla det beskrivande syftet med uppsatsen, valde vi att kvalitativt undersöka hur två företag i petroleumbranschen arbetar med lojalitetsprogram. Intervjuer genomfördes med ansvariga för kundkort på AB Svenska Shell och Svenska Statoil AB. Empirin analyserades sedan med hjälp av teorier om Customer Relationship Management, relationsmarknadsföring samt lojalitet och lönsamhet.

AbstractC-level essay in political science, by Frida Orlinder, spring semester 2008Supervisor: Susan Marton?Good contracting? ? A study of contracting in public procurement regarding the transportation of school children?Over the last decades models influenced by the market have been gaining influence in public administration all over the world. New Public Management has been presented as a theoretical ?shopping basket? from which concepts can be applied to the administration of municipal services. The purpose of this essay is to investigate in an explorative way how New Public Management (NPM) views contracting and the role of the internal customer in contracting.

Since companies have realised the importance of customer loyalty and since the service sector has gained higher significance in recent years, we found it interesting to study what leads to customer loyalty in service companies. The theories we have chosen to consider are customer loyalty, service quality, service guarantees, affinity marketing, loyalty programmes and customer clubs, the customer in focus and other factors that influences customer loyalty. To find out how service companies are working with cus- tomer loyalty, we have conducted a case study within three service companies. Our findings are that customer loyalty has a significant importance for the companies we studied. Quality and personnel were the factors we found had the greatest impact in service companies concerning customer loyalty.

AbstractC-level essay in political science, by Frida Orlinder, spring semester 2008Supervisor: Susan Marton?Good contracting? ? A study of contracting in public procurement regarding the transportation of school children?Over the last decades models influenced by the market have been gaining influence in public administration all over the world. New Public Management has been presented as a theoretical ?shopping basket? from which concepts can be applied to the administration of municipal services. The purpose of this essay is to investigate in an explorative way how New Public Management (NPM) views contracting and the role of the internal customer in contracting.

The web has a broad affect on the global economy and can among other things be used for web based information systems (WIS). These systems have grown from being used as a market platform to support all activities in the work of an organisation of today. To survive in a turbulent competitive environment, companies must start to cooperate with their customers instead of just collaborate with them. Can an IT-consultant company use a WIS as a tool for keeping in contact with existing customers to attain this cooperation? A WIS could strengthen the relation between customer and supplier and through that have a possibility to increase the customer use since it can facilitate business processes and imply that services can be offered in a new way.

Course:Business Administration, Master Thesis, Second Level, 30 Credits.Authors:Sara Frännlid and Helena RamstedtTutor:Jim AndersénTitle:Internet, relationships and loyalty ? Best praCtice foR the bankMarketPurpose:The study aims to explain how banks use electronic customer relationship management, eCRM, to create loyal customers. A figure will be created, which will enlighten the factors a bank should focus on when enhancing customer loyalty through the internet. Through interviews with two successful banks is it possible to study how a bank can successfully create loyal customers.Methodology:A qualitative method in terms of semi-structured interviews is used. The empirical results were then analyzed with the theory in order to contribute with a new figure.Theoreticalperspective:The theory describes how a bank can create a loyal customer over the Internet.

In relation to the development of IT-products it is very important that the software supplier is aware not only of the target group but also the field of application. Usability should characterize the whole IT-design process as, in relation to this context, design includes more than merely those aspects which are visible to and thus can be interpreted by the naked eye. The study examines the specific qualities and properties that substantiate the usability and the demands that a customer rightfully expects from an IT-product. The user and the customer are highlighted in the same context in order to demonstrate that it is through the customer that an IT-product is defined as being useful. Thus, from this perspective, the user and customer can be considered as being the same person.